1787 -- US: Shay's Rebellion, begun in August, opposed theimprisonment of Massachusetts farmers for debts. Daniel Shays& 800 followers march to Springfield to seize the Federal arsenal,but were repulsed & put down by the Massachusetts State militia.

The American Revolution is celebrated as an heroic liberation from from colonial rule. But a major impetus for adopting the US Constitution, a compromise between slaveholding interests of the South & moneyed interests of the North, was a fear of the common people & to prevent further rebellions such as Shay's.

As Howard Zinn notes, "The Constitution was set up for the big government. It was set up to protect the slave owners, bankers, land prospectors & merchants. We've been living with a big government since 1787."

Direct Action . . . implies that the working class subscribes to notions of freedom & autonomy instead of genuflecting before the principle of authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority principle, the pivot of the modern world — democracy being its latest incarnation — that the human being, tied down by a thousand ropes, moral as well as material, is bereft of any opportunity to display will & initiative.